This post is going to be about rape. Nothing graphic, but if it’s a sensitive topic for you, you might want to consider another article.
Among terrible crimes, rape stands out, at least for some – it is the quintessential feminist nightmare. Maybe you’ve seen posters like this doing the rounds on Facebook:
How quaint.
This one above reads like a (facetious) 10-step instruction guide on how not rape, for any old man to be able to follow! The literal message being presented is, basically, “don’t rape”. I’m not going to divert my attention towards explaining how ineffectual it is to politely tell criminals not to commit crimes. Instead, let’s look at the actual purpose of the poster.
What do all 10 steps to ‘end rape’ have in common? Surely there might be something about not sending ambiguous sexual messages or choosing to put oneself in a situation whereby you can be taken advantage of? Nope. They are all things that the man (the potential rapist) must do. This is not an oversight. It fits perfectly with the helpless victim character that feminists believe women to be. (I’m going to ignore, as they do, the male victims of rape.)
Because feminists believe that women are helpless and unable to do anything to prevent rape, any suggestion of taking even small measures of personal safety is construed as blaming the victim. I have a few problems with this.
Firstly, there is nothing inherently wrong with blaming the victim-when the victim has, due to their own intentional actions, caused the state of affairs. If Bob decides to cut off his thumb, he has no-one else to blame but himself for the pain. Yet he is also the victim. There is no good reason to have a taboo against blaming the victim to some degree.
Secondly, nobody in their right mind blames a victim for circumstances beyond their control. We all make choices every day, some important, some not, and some better than others. The choices we make are, by definition, not beyond our control.
But most importantly, blame (and responsibility) is not black-and white. It isn’t either/or, and it isn’t absolute. When feminists harp on about victim-blaming, it is presented as if the victim was exclusively and fully responsible for their rape (nobody who is taken seriously holds that position.) Hence, if the victim is blamed, the rapist can’t be; “rape apologetics”.
Posters like these are not made to prevent rape. Their purpose is to reaffirm and justify the readers’ victim complex. That is the only thing it can do, because it is so deeply entrenched in the man-rapes-woman gender narrative. “Strange man jumps out of nowhere and rapes a woman.” Most rapes occur between people who know each other and happen at one of their homes. But don’t let facts get in the way of a good story.
We cannot ignore the fact that in other cases of rights vs. pragmatic responsibility, this line of reasoning is absurd. For example, while I’m on holiday, I’m not obligated to lock my house. It’s not my problem if someone wants to steal my stuff, it’s their problem! Right, but in the interest of actually keeping your stuff, you should. It’s called making practical decisions. Yes, they are ones you wouldn’t have to make if the world was ‘perfect’. But it isn’t.
“Don’t blame me for knowingly making it easier for a bad guy to victimise me. Blame the bad guy for doing the bad thing!” This is an unacceptable excuse for every other crime. Why would rape be an exception?
Hopefully, it is now even more obvious why this attitude is both harmful and vacuous.
Let me know what you think in the comments section, this was written up at 4/5 in the morning, so apologies if my writing got a bit sloppy.
Hey dude, awesome article and pretty much dead on –
I am a little worried about the following paragraph for obvious feminist quote mining:
“Don’t blame me for knowingly making it easier for a bad guy to victimise me. Blame the bad guy for doing the bad thing!” This is an unacceptable excuse for every other crime. Why would rape be an exception?
Because, you know, fems gonna cherry pick…
But yeah, agreed with pretty much the whole thing.
It absolutely kills me when people say that telling women to be safe (“walk home with friends”, or “take a cab”) is victim blaming – no, it’s showing concern for your wellbeing.
I once read a fem blog where she said her mother was oppressing her because she was giving her safety tips – now really, what’s more likely?
a) Her mother is an agent of the patriarchy trying to subjugate her,
b) Her mother loves her and doesn’t want anything bad to happen.
My mother told me similar things to make sure I wasn’t mugged, or assaulted (or raped) at night – but I’m a male. Am I being oppressed too?
Such idiocy.
Haha, yup. Cheers
Also seems a little odd that the picture you linked in seems to be using a bit of humour to get the point across – but, according to most fems, rape jokes contribute to rape culture.
Contradictions ahoy!
It’s amazing how much they’re actually damaging progress to what they claim is their goal!
Don’t wear skirts. Don’t go to parties. Don’t get drunk. Don’t go out at night.. Don’t go out period.
Nah, that’s not victim blaming at all. That’s just telling a girl that you live in a society that is predatory, and if anything happens, it’s your own fault. Wait..
Telling people how to be safe is not putting blame on them… Putting blame on them is putting blame on them.
Posters like these are not made to prevent rape. Their purpose is to reaffirm and justify the readers’ victim complex.
Actually, neither of these things are the case. The posters aren’t meant to prevent rape. They’re parodies, intended to highlight the amount of useless advice women receive for how to avoid being raped. Like, you’re absolutely right about a lot of what you’re saying – the poster ignores things like the fact that men can be raped, and that most people are raped by someone they know. The reason for this is that the Stop Rape advice it’s making fun of always ignores these facts too. Feminists are aware of these things, and many feminists spend a lot of time trying to make the mainstream more aware of them as well.
Surely there might be something about not sending ambiguous sexual messages or choosing to put oneself in a situation whereby you can be taken advantage of?
The reason you’re not seeing that here is, as I’ve said, the poster is a send-up, and it’s parodying that very advice. Here is more or less what the advice would look like, in it’s original form:
1. Always keep an eye on your drink to make sure no one puts anything in it/never accept drinks from strangers
2. Never walk alone at night, and if you do and you see a man walking, cross the street to put distance between you
3. Don’t give lifts to hitchhikers/help men who’s cars have broken down/accept help from men when your car breaks down
4. If you’re alone in a lift and a man gets in, get out and wait for the next lift
5. Always lock the doors and windows to your home when you’re alone so intruders can’t get in
6. Buddy System – keep an eye on your friends when you go out clubbing and don’t walk alone at night
7. Don’t drink to excess because you could pass out and be vulnerable
8. Everyone’s heard of rape whistles, right?
9. If you don’t intend to sleep with someone you’re on a date with, tell them at the beginning of the night and don’t go home with them. If you don’t communicate your intentions they may take it as a sign you want to have sex and things could go further than you wanted.
I’ve heard all of these (and heaps of others) so many times that I didn’t even have to think hard to reconstruct that list. Most of it isn’t inherently bad advice, but it’s always presented like women are expected to restrict themselves so much in ways that men aren’t (because obviously men don’t get raped *eyeroll*) and it only helps in really specific situations (because obviously women are never raped by someone they know *eyeroll*). And if women aren’t able to protect themselves, everyone asks questions like “well what was she doing walking by herself so late at night?” or “why did she drink so much?” or “what did she think would happen, giving a stranger a lift home?” And a lot of the time, even if she has really good reasons for her actions or hasn’t done anything even a little bit risky, people will still find reasons to put the blame on her or skeptically reserve judgment. Not always, sure, but pretty often – often enough that saying “nobody in their right mind blames a victim for circumstances beyond their control” is… not really true (or if it is true that no one sensible does this, then there are far too many people in the world who are not sensible).
Anyway, all I’m trying to say is that the poster isn’t a serious campaign intended to get rapists to rethink the error in their ways. Its point is that telling people what essentially boils down to “don’t get raped” is just as useless as telling people “don’t rape” (since people who do all the “right” things can still get raped). Its point is to make people think about why we only ever advise potential victims on how to protect themselves instead of also trying to create cultural and institutional changes to more effectively protect people. It’s not that women are ~completely helpless~ against rape, it’s that women would have a lot more power if they (and perhaps more importantly, potential attackers) really believed society and the law would be on their side.
I don’t actually want to get into a fight about whether or not that kind of advice to women on avoiding rape does more harm than good. But your article kind of assumes the poster is trying to achieve something that it’s not trying to do at all. I wouldn’t have even bothered commenting, but since I know you IRL and always thought you were pretty cool, I thought it might be worthwhile.
Yeah, I pretty much agree with that. It was late at night and I was garnering an idea of the effect of this based on the responses on Facebook (admittedly, not a large sample size.) It was mainly stuff like “Yeah, put the blame where it’s deserved!” (I’m too am as tired of seeing “don’t rape” as I am of seeing “why did you get yourself raped”.) In any case, I agree- and thanks for pointing this out.
Rape is always a horrible thing. Rapists need the death penalty.
I second Kristen’s opinion saying that it isn’t a serious ad to get rapists to rethink error in their ways. I don’t like how the ad is targeted towards women getting raped though. It should be expanded to rape in general. Men are capable to being raped as well. It annoys me how women are portrayed to be so weak. Many cases of rape are never reported which is also an issue. How are we to address a situation if no one knows about it. If we really want to stop rape, people have to stand up and be able to report these incidents. But I do agree that this ad advertises some good points like be careful at night and watch what your drinking when your not at home.
I know it isn’t, but some people don’t.
This artical is entirely bogus. When a woman allows a man into her bed she is offering parts of herself and trusting him to respect her. When the intimacy she was hoping to share becomes an act of disrespect and her choice in what is occurring is taken away, the responsibility for all of that wrong doing falls on the person who perpetrated the crime. Then the victim is left wondering what her responsibility is now. Knowing that it will happen again to someone else if she does not tell, and not wanting her own life ruined by it. This exact thing happened to me 4 days ago. I had not had intercorse in 4 years. I was saving myself for someone who would at least be a potential life mate. He knew that. But he did it anyway. Now what? He’s that special someone I waited 4 years for?! Fuckin’ prick! And what? What do I do now knowing that he will do it again, and not wanting my own life ruined because of something that someone did to me? This artical is totally ridiculous. Nobody goes out looking ta get raped. But they may be wanting to be romantic or sexy or intimate in a mutual way. Hopefully one does not have to walk around in a chastity belt. Hopefully saying “No” loud and clear is communication enough. Rapists need to realize that that is what they are when they disrespect themselves so much to excuse their own actions with a “I’m a guy, guys are controlled by their dicks” bullshit attitude. Ya might as well be saying “guys are rapists” Is that what you think? I’m sad to say that the odds aren’t lookin’ good…Maybe you should read this articl…
http://pervocracy.blogspot.ca/2012/08/the-myth-of-boner-werewolf.html
Sorry for the long wait to approve this – I was away. I’m also not sure I completely understand the link from what I wrote to your comment.
Yeah, I really don’t buy that they honestly think they will prevent rape with this. People like this say, “if you give people tips, it’s victim blaming!” That’s like saying karate lessons are blaming the victims of attacks, or that getting an alarm is robbery victim blaming. Bullshit. It’s awful that they want to silence helpful tips that could potentially help in a bad situation because, if you twist it 1000 ways, it’s “offensive.”